Conventionally, a motor and an inverter for controlling a drive of the motor are disposed at positions close to each other. For example, a patent document, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-153552 (Patent document 1) discloses a structure in which an inverter-mounted circuit board is housed in a case, and the case is attached to an outer shell of a compressor.
The structure in the patent document 1 has a heat sink disposed on an opening of the case, and heat from an Intelligent Power Module (IPM) is dissipated to the heat sink. Therefore, the structure in the patent document 1 needs to have an opening on the case, and the heat sink must be provided in a separate part from the other part, which increases the number of components in the drive device.